


The Spirit's Tender Steel

by the_rck



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Accepting a different call, Canon levels of polytheism, Diplomacy, Ethics, Gen, Not Lewis's Christianity, Refusing the Call, Tash is not the Devil, Tashbaan, The Problem of Susan, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Tashbaan was noisy in a way that no part of Narnia was. It rang with human voices and human tools. The air in the harbor smelled of sewage rather than of the kelp and dead fish that Susan expected. Susan had known, of course, how very many people lived in Calormen's capitol, but it had been an abstract number, one she hadn't been able to visualize except as 'bigger than Anvard.'This was her having touched a few grains of sand in preparation for suddenly encountering a beach. Words couldn't convey the sensory experience to anyone who hadn't had it before; they only echoed what listeners and readers already knew.





	The Spirit's Tender Steel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lookatallthemoresigive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatallthemoresigive/gifts).



> Thanks to Gammarad and Tigerbright for brainstorming and beta reading.
> 
> Title from Mari Evans' "How Sudden Dies the Blooming."
> 
> There's some animism here, too, but I don't think it goes beyond what's implied by canon.
> 
> There's implied canon divergence here in as much as I'm assuming that Rabadash and Susan can part amicably and that that derails a large chunk of the plot for The Horse and His Boy. Susan probably looks exotically pretty by Calormene standards, but Narnia doesn't have much to offer the next Tisroc economically or militarily or otherwise. Apart from that, certain developments here might derail the Telmarine invasion of Narnia down the road or make it happen very differently, but I'm not absolutely certain they would.

"He won't give up being his father's heir to live at Cair Paravel," Edmund said when Susan mentioned the possibility visiting Tashbaan, "and I think... The magic that made us Kings and Queens of Narnia still needs all four of us." He frowned and looked thoughtful as he gazed out the narrow window of their shared study at the newly planted apple trees below, and Susan realized that it wasn't entirely about all of the potential diplomatic traps involved in visiting a foreign country. "Even if you marry Rabadash, you can't live in Tashbaan. Visiting back and forth would be... awkward."

Susan marrying and leaving Narnia might serve Narnia best-- she wasn't certain about that yet-- but it wouldn't serve her younger brother well. She hadn't considered this problem. She'd thought about Lucy and about Peter. Why had she not thought that Edmund might wish her to stay? Probably because Edmund didn't like to ask for that sort of consideration. That made forgetting to offer it far too easy.

"I'm not smitten," she said gently. "Calormen is _there_ , and we need good relations. All of Narnia dropped on Tashbaan wouldn't reach the provincial borders." She let calculation show in her expression and hoped it would reassure him. "Rabadash wants the glory of having snared the affection of a foreign queen. It gives him something that doesn't come from his father, and I can manage that without marriage, without more than, perhaps, a stolen kiss or two. I just have to let him do it where his people can see."

Edmund's expression didn't change. "That's risky," he said after several seconds of silence.

"Yes." Susan met her brother's eyes.

Edmund looked away. "I'm going with you," he told her.

She'd hoped for that, so she didn't argue. Peter was High King and could not be risked. Lucy was a prophet and a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen. Susan had always been going to take Edmund.

****

Susan understood the necessities that dictated their mode of travel to Tashbaan. She wished that the world were otherwise, but she understood. She and Edmund would be too vulnerable traveling overland. Going by sea meant trusting the weather and the Sea People, but re-establishing relations between Narnia and the sea had been easier than re-establishing cordial interactions with any other neighbor.

The sea had remembered. Until the Witch fell and her grip on the land loosened, the rest of the world had considered Narnia entirely mythical. Archenland had had weather oddly cold for its latitude, but that had simply meant that it could sell ice to Calormen during a much longer season.

Susan understood that Edmund's concerns about 'bandits' had more to do with not trusting the Tisroc or any of the Tarkaans through whose territory they'd need to pass. Had she alone been making the decisions, she'd have gone by sea for the same reason. Narnia wouldn't recognize a forced marriage, but Rabadash's words had shown that his people didn't understand naiads and dryads and river gods and how they made the land alive.

The Witch's long winter had been as much about forcing the spirits of the land to slumber as it had been about her desire to cause suffering and to demonstrate her power over ambient temperatures. 

Susan wanted to know if the spirits of places in Calormen would-- could-- speak to her as those in Narnia did. Were they sleeping? Were they hiding? Were they so secret that no one ever spoke of them but everyone knew? Were they simply not there?

Edmund said that he hoped that they simply weren't there. "It would be pleasant," he told her, privately, "not to need to consider Calormen a military threat, but we don't know what they could draw on if they attacked us. They don't have enough gods, at least not that I've been able to get names for, to account for all the land, but the land can't be dead, not if it feeds them." He frowned as if that would make the map he was studying show him more answers. The map was one of many documents they owed to the generosity of King Lune of Archenland. "If _she_ hadn't burned the Royal Library--"

Susan put a hand on her brother's arm and squeezed. "Don't. We have what we have." She suspected that it wasn't only the Witch who'd burned books. One hundred years of winter meant burning anything that wasn't immediately useful.

Maps of a land no one would ever visit-- Nothing Edmund had or hadn't done would have kept those books from the fire. By two years into a century of ice, Edmund, too, would have been calculating how long an atlas could keep a room warm.

Susan let her hand fall. "All the more reason to extend the courtship. Visiting will let us find out about the land, and if Prince Rabadash's offer comes with a true alliance, refusing to visit would be impolitic. I believe he expects me to bring a retinue of ladies." She made herself smile at Edmund. "Since I haven't got a retinue of Daughters of Eve, we will have to... improvise."

She would borrow one or two ladies from Archenland and bring scholars and merchants in place of the others. They would know better than she what connections might be useful.

Choosing the right gift for the Tisroc was a challenge. Narnia was still poor. Most of what they had that Calormen wanted was old growth hardwood. A hold filled with that would be a valuable gift, but it wouldn't be a royal gift. Susan took the wood, but she also took a torque set with three of the gems the Narnians called the Queen's Tears. They were said to be the tears that the last reigning Queen shed over the loss of her children when the Witch arrived.

Susan liked to think that she'd manage more than tears in the face of that, but she also had two brothers and a sister to support her. That other queen's brother had stood with the Witch. He hadn't repented it, not that history recorded, and no one had rescued him. Susan loved Aslan a little less for that, and she tried to make up for it by loving Narnia more.

At any rate, the Queen's Tears were nearly priceless because they were found nowhere else in the world and because even Narnia only had two hundred. The Queen's Tears were also worthless because they served no purpose in Narnian daily life. They were pretty but not edible or magical. They could not clean water or warm a room. They could not make a seam straight or a blade sharp. Narnia only needed one to remember the story by.

The Tisroc would understand the priceless part but miss all the rest. He might see the name as an acknowledgment that Susan knew that a barbarian queen would never be permitted to marry the heir to an empire. He also might not.

King Lune didn't rate the Tisroc's ability to control and manage his own realm at above fifty percent. "That's only partly lack of ability," the King of Archenland had said, privately, while Susan and Lucy had been visiting Anvard two years before. "He didn't have much chance to learn before he took the throne. A lot of the people he had to rely on had been appointed by his father and were... er... set in their ways. Dealing with them meant accepting help from their enemies without minding that those enemies had agendas, too. I shouldn't want to take on a... project that large." His frown had said that he knew that his own heir wasn't even ready to manage Archenland.

"Edmund understands boys," she had said in response to the frown. Edmund hadn't thanked her for the added responsibility, but he had had a good influence on Corin. Edmund had understood as well as Susan had how much they owed to Archenland and to King Lune.

She hoped that seeing Tashbaan would make Corin understand the size of the world and the seriousness of his responsibilities. His name appeared nowhere on the list of members of Susan's retinue. He was itemized merely as "page in service to their Majesties." Taking him was a risk, of course. He could be used as leverage to make his father agree to almost anything, but Corin was like Lucy in that restricting either too much would sour them and make them rot from the core outwards.

A princess or tarkheena met on this trip might serve well for a bride for the next King of Archenland. The Tisroc had many daughters. Susan and King Lune hoped that one of them or one of their ladies might catch Corin's attention. Even if the boy thought otherwise, he was too young for Lucy.

Not that a crush on Susan's sister showed anything but exquisite taste.

****

Tashbaan was noisy in a way that no part of Narnia was. It rang with human voices and human tools. The air in the harbor smelled of sewage rather than of the kelp and dead fish that Susan expected. Susan had known, of course, how very many people lived in Calormen's capitol, but it had been an abstract number, one she hadn't been able to visualize except as 'bigger than Anvard.'

This was her having touched a few grains of sand in preparation for suddenly encountering a beach. Words couldn't convey the sensory experience to anyone who hadn't had it before; they only echoed what listeners and readers already knew.

Susan was glad that she had time to gawk a little before their ship came close enough to Tashbaan for diplomacy. Narnia wanted architecture to blend with nature, and most structures were impermanent or underground. Cair Paravel was an oddity. 

Archenland built to emphasize the boundaries between the Human and the Wild with sharp planes, straight lines, and right angles. They built gray stone structures that would take centuries to crumble.

Tashbaan did neither, did both. The buildings had softer edges than Susan expected and more color, reds and blues and gold. They were very human structures, but they weren't human in contrast to or separated from nature.

"There are spirits here," Edmund said as he came to stand behind her. "I can tell that much."

Susan nodded because she could feel it, too. "They're asleep," she said. She frowned. "It's not our land. I'm not sure we should wake them."

Edmund shrugged. "We will, or we won't. Short of canceling the visit, I don't think it's our choice."

Canceling would destroy any goodwill Narnia had built with the Tisroc over the last decade. The Tisroc's main reaction to the change of regime after the Witch fell was irritation that ice was no longer available quite so easily. A century was long enough for human memory to forget other things Narnia might offer.

Peter and Susan were still trying to figure out what goods might travel well and which of Narnia's wants were needs requiring trade. Becoming kings and queens had involved rather a lot more making-do than any of them had expected at the start, so there was always the temptation to trade for human luxuries. They had to balance cost with the necessity of not being taken for barbarians in Archenland or the Lone Islands. They had to be able to defend their borders and their people, and that took resources from and information about the lands outside of Narnia.

"I'm not fond of leaping off cliffs without knowing what's at the bottom," Susan told Edmund.

He made a small noise that told her that he doubted the truth of her statement, and she didn't try to argue the point. This whole expedition was a leap off of a cliff.

Susan had realized that, but she'd thought that King Lune, at least, knew what was at the bottom. She should have remembered the divisions between the Human and the Wild in Archenland and understood that what King Lune thought was important might not include crucial information for a King and Queen of Narnia.

When they reached the pier, there were litters waiting for Susan and Edmund. Susan was a little glad that she could put off the moment of touching the earth of Calormen for a few minutes or hours longer. She doubted that any of the Tisroc's people had any idea that there might be danger from a barbarian king and queen simply putting a foot down on the soil of their country.

"They have to have been sleeping before the Witch came to Narnia," Susan murmured to her brother as they smiled and waved to the crowds watching them disembark. "A century isn't long enough for a place like this to forget. So is it a thing the humans did or a thing the Witch did before Narnia?"

Edmund darted a glance at her. "Both, most likely." He bumped one elbow into her arm. "We can make a ceremony of touching our hands to the ground and just get it over with."

That would be his solution, she thought. "Or we could wait and do it later. Rabadash promised the most beautiful gardens." She laughed softly. "Flowers to match my eyes or something. There will have to be soil to have a garden."

"Su," Edmund said, "we don't know what happens after. If it's big, I'd rather still be near our ship so that we can run. And maybe nothing happens, anyway, or nothing fast. Our presence announced through stone might be gradual."

"Narnia took days to wake, after Lucy came," Susan said, "and that was with Aslan present." It had also, she thought, had to work against the Witch's active opposition.

Edmund shrugged. "No reason to think He isn't, is there?"

"I'm better at politics than theology." She really didn't like the possibility that there might be opposition here. She also wasn't pleased by the idea that her diplomatic venture might start the sort of upheaval in Calormen that their presence had caused in Narnia.

The people here-- Calormen was a functioning society, just people being people. The Witch's Narnia hadn't been that by any measure. Every cruelty in the Witch's realm had been deliberate and chosen with malice.

If they woke sleeping spirits, would people die of it?

Edmund took a step forward and said, "Then find a political justification for this." He strode forward, leaving her to follow in his wake. When he reached the line between the wood of the pier and the stone paving the dockside, he dipped and touched the stone with the fingertips of his right hand. Then he raised those fingertips to his lips.

The earth didn't split or even tremble. The sea didn't rise or change color. Nothing sprouted or fell from the sky.

Susan felt an uneasiness, though, as if something were starting to stir. She hoped no one else noticed. "It is an honor to Narnia to be so welcomed by Calormen," she said in her best and most formal public speaking voice.

For a moment, everything seemed to go silent around them.

Susan hoped that it wasn't due to them having broken some custom that might cause a diplomatic breach. "One earth speaks to another," she said, "in a prayer for friendship and peace." She gave the welcoming committee a regal nod and pretended that what Edmund was doing was entirely normal behavior. Then, she considered that it was entirely normal behavior for Edmund. Her smile widened a little.

Half of the expensively dressed courtiers looked stunned by her smile. The other half were giving Edmund more attention. Susan thought that none of them were sure which sibling was the more important. Susan was the officially invited guest, but Edmund was a man and a king.

King Lune's lessons on social hierarchy at the Tisroc's court were pretty definite that no one would consider Susan and Edmund equals in power. Susan had intended to use Edmund's presence to make herself look weaker, less independent.

She was going to have to rethink all of that.

After almost twenty minutes of ceremonial fuss and not a little dismay on the Calomene side about the non-human nature of many of Susan and Edmund's attendants, the King and Queen of Narnia were settled in separate litters. Susan kept Corin with her because she could see that he intended to disappear into the city as soon as he could escape observation. She wanted to put that off long enough that he'd be exploring safer streets than those that lay close to the harbor. 

The boy might survive and learn from being robbed, but him meeting a press gang-- Corin would think it an adventure well after it stopped being, and King Lune would never let another Narnian enter Archenland.

Susan had never ridden in a litter before. She wasn't sure she cared for the experience, but it was a break from needing to speak polite nonsense. All she had to do while they traveled was to keep Corin from jumping down to walk. She'd promised his father that she'd keep him safe, and he sometimes lacked the sense Aslan gave a housefly.

The house that had been set aside for their party did, in fact, have a garden. Susan could tell that Edmund wanted to be out there without seeing to the courtesies and without being in any way discreet about having important things to do, so she gripped his elbow and squeezed. "You will _not_ leave me facing this alone," she whispered with vehemence, putting in every promise of sisterly retaliation she could muster. "The garden will still be there _after_ the Prince leaves us alone for the night. We don't meet the Tisroc for three days. We have time."

Edmund's arm twitched under her hand, but he nodded. "Sorry," he murmured. "I think... Lucy knew something. Before we left, I mean. She told me that we must not hunt here nor eat any wild creature. She had her Look."

The woman Rabadash had found to manage their household was still introducing the servants, so Susan hadn't eaten anything yet, but she still felt queasy. There was only one way to interpret a warning like that. "You couldn't have said during the voyage?" Or before? Before would have meant being able to pack provisions and to leave the carnivores at home.

This time Edmund's twitch was clearly guilt. "I meant to."

While Susan memorized the names and titles of the servants, she started spinning out ideas to cover why none in their party would eat flesh while in Calormen and mentally reviewed the members of their retinue so that she'd know how many and which ones would not be well on bread and fruit and greens. Cheese might be acceptable, if it was available, but she thought eggs too risky.

If there were wild creatures that must not be eaten, Susan wasn't going to risk trying the domesticated.

She wondered why Lucy had not warned her, too, or anyone else in the party. She wondered if Edmund had forgotten or had been meant to forget.

Later that evening, Susan returned from a small, informal reception at which Prince Rabadash had introduced her and Edmund to his mother and sisters. Susan thought that Lady Zubeidah did not expect Rabadash to marry Queen Susan of Narnia, and that knowledge was something of a relief because Susan had quite liked the older woman.

Edmund seemed to like her, too, but not, Susan feared, to the point of considering marrying one of the woman's daughters. Edmund was difficult in that way because he wanted a degree of maturity, education, and judgment in a potential partner that no twenty year old was likely to have without Aslan having granted it directly.

Edmund might well have been willing to marry Zubeidah if she were the Calormene equivalent of the Queen Mother, but the current Tisroc's health was reportedly excellent, and, even were Rabadash Tisroc, he probably wouldn't risk allowing his mother marry anyone at all, let alone a foreign king.

Susan made a fuss over preparations for going to bed. It kept the attention of the local servants on her so that Edmund could slip into the garden. She also made a fuss over Corin so that he couldn't slip off anywhere at all. Night time was not ideal for a high spirited boy to explore a foreign city.

Which made Susan a hypocrite because she certainly intended to explore Tashbaan a bit between then and dawn. She'd never be able to slip out during the day, and the spies were certainly watching for Edmund to try it. 

Edmund sitting all night, alone, in the garden would be eccentricity, but it wouldn't be espionage or sabotage.

Rabadash and the men who had come to Narnia with him thought Susan flighty and incapable. Susan could cover a great many things by acting empty-headed if she was caught.

She was helped by the fact that Zardeenah's Market was open to all women, including foreigners. Susan had no idea where Zardeenah's Market might be tonight or tomorrow or any time during her stay, but wishing to visit it and not having thought to ask a local woman for directions was an acceptable reason for Susan to wander late at night.

If one started from the premise that she had no sense of self-preservation.

Susan took two of her people, Raizni, a Leopard, who served her as bodyguard, and Ullu, an Owl still small enough to pass for a dumb animal, who served as her messenger. Susan hoped that her companions might spot signs of Talking Animals hiding in the alleys they passed. Susan's attention was entirely on trying to sense any flows of restless power. She trusted Raizni to keep her from walking into walls or ditches.

Susan stopped once they were out of sight of the house and told Raizni and Ullu, "Something started to wake when we landed."

Ullu landed on a wall and twisted her head first in one direction and then another.

Susan thought the Owl was keeping watch. "We're not sure if we're supposed to do anything about it." She just managed to make it not a question.

Sometimes, the Animals remembered things that everyone else had forgotten.

Raizni made a thoughtful sound that made Susan think that the Leopard knew something.

Ullu said nothing.

"Aslan gave us duty to Narnia," Susan said, again not allowing the words to be a question.

"The entire world is Narnia," Raizni said. "The lands you rule are merely the last retreat, the last sanctuary. We had nowhere to go from there when the Witch came. Sons of Adam and others came to this world when it was too new to know itself, so the borders between it and other worlds have always been permeable. Aslan warned us after the first dawn."

Susan couldn't speak for several seconds. She looked around at the large houses and the street lit by-- She wasn't sure if the lamps used gas or magic. She supposed it didn't matter. "None of this should be here." She swallowed hard as she multiplied the population of the house they were staying in by the number of houses she'd seen and then added more people for every part of the city she'd seen.

Raizni shrugged. "It is here. _They_ are here. The dead are in Aslan's land."

"That doesn't make it right." Susan wanted to put a hand on the Leopard's side, but she knew the contact would not be welcome, so she didn't. "Ullu," she said, "my sister said we must not eat wild creatures here. Please, look for the reason. I suspect that we will find only smaller Creatures, those better able to hide, those that could adapt. Edmund and I would like to-- We must know what they ask of us."

"You cannot fight a war to save Rabbits, your Majesty," Raizni said.

Susan squared her shoulders. "We can't _now_. I also... I do not think it would be that sort of war." Perhaps this was why she, out of all of her siblings, remembered so many stories, so much history, from before they came to Narnia. She hoped she wouldn't have to find a way to recapture this part of Narnia by marrying Rabadash and... managing him carefully enough that fewer people died.

She would, of course, if that was the path Aslan intended for her. She simply would prefer not to have to. _War is ugly when women fight._ She'd thought that Santa Claus had meant something else, but this-- She whispered a sincere prayer and started walking again.

Ullu found the Water Spirit first. "She glows," Ullu said as she glided by on Susan's left. "One street down, left, and two over by the well in the square."

The Water Spirit might have passed for a naked, sleeping Daughter of Eve, but she glowed blue, and no human woman would look that peaceful while lying naked on the lip of a well.

Susan sat several feet away on one of the steps to the well and waited. She suspected that a too rapid waking would serve no purpose. Susan had no authority to order a Water Spirit to accept walls, and she wouldn't have felt right using it if she had. 

She just also couldn't think what to do about the people who relied on water from the well. They weren't going to stop needing it. Maybe they had some sort of old agreement with this Water Spirit and others like her, something they still remembered and honored in a way that would satisfy the spirits. Susan hoped it might be so because, in spite of Raizni's words, Tashbaan and all of this had not been part of what Susan and her siblings had agreed to.

Susan needed to do was to find someone who would know.

Susan didn't think she'd have accepted being Queen if she hadn't thought Narnia was small enough for her to understand it. The others might have or might not. Susan had had years to discover that 'small' was not the same as uncomplicated. This was-- She and Edmund had started something and would have to do their best to manage even if there was no way either of them could be enough.

Enough.

Edmund had said 'not enough gods' rather than 'no gods,' and even a foreign woman was welcome any night at Zardeenah's Market.

"Ullu," Susan said, pitching her voice to carry without sounding loud to human ears. It was a trick she'd needed years to learn and still could only manage when the Lion smiled. "I need you to look for the Lady Zardeenah. Her, her temple, or her market." Susan hesitated. "Possibly she has more than one temple?" She knew how to find Bacchus, even without wine, and she'd seen Artemis hunt often enough to have an idea where to look, but she knew far less about Zardeenah.

Edmund would tell her that that information had burned with Narnia's library.

Ullu flew off without answering, so Susan guessed the Owl had no more idea than Susan did.

Raizni also didn't say anything. She simply paced a perimeter around Susan and the Water Spirit.

Susan didn't think they were going to be disturbed.

****

Later, as Susan made pilgrimage to Zardeenah's nearest temple, they passed more spirits. Some of those were even awake. Some of those looked bewildered. Others were curious or worried. They all seemed surprised by the buildings and by the occasional groups of humans still out and about.

None of the humans seemed to notice the spirits. Susan was grateful for that and worried about it in equal measures. The lack of panic was good. She simply feared that humans would hesitate to negotiate with what they couldn't see. There were more people around as they drew nearer the temple, and Susan thought she could have found the place simply by following along with everyone else. Both humans and spirits were gathering outside.

The temple walls were inlaid with polished obsidian that reflected flickers of spirit light. For a moment, Susan thought that the bricks that made the walls were also glowing, but after a few seconds, she realized that it wasn't a visible energy.

Zardeenah was present.

Susan touched the fingers of her right hand to her lips and dropped a curtsey. "Lady, I beg leave to enter," she said under her breath. She had no idea what might happen next, but kings and queens who made demands of gods were the stuff of cautionary tales.

If Zardeenah didn't want to talk, Susan would turn and go back to her guest quarters. She might still get some sleep tonight.

The spirits nearest Susan turned to look at her. That attention in her direction spread like ripples in a pond. 

"Daughter of Aslan..." It might have been the wind; it might have been the spirits. It was the barest whisper of sound.

Susan supposed that calling her 'daughter of Aslan' made more sense than calling her 'daughter of Eve' when she was only one of thousands of human women currently in Tashbaan. The others had equal claim to the latter designation. Probably few of them had ever been close enough to feel Aslan's breath. 

Susan curtsied again to acknowledge that she'd heard. Part of her wanted to claim her title as Queen of Narnia, but-- in spite of what Raizni had said-- she wasn't in Narnia now. She might owe the same service to the spirits and the Talking Animals and other creatures here as she did to those back home because her promises had been that open, but these beings owed her no fealty in answer.

A small door to the left of the temple's grander but still closed main doors opened. A robed figure who moved stiffly stepped out and looked at the waiting beings, scanning faces and finally stopping with Susan's. "My Lady will see you inside, Susan Pevensie," the woman's voice sounded worn with age. "Your guards may come also."

Susan didn't hesitate, and Raizni followed close. Ullu only arrived as they reached the door, and of the three of them, she had the most trouble getting in as the door was not meant to accommodate even her modest wingspan and the short corridor beyond wasn't enough wider to help. The lamps along the walls made flying through the corridor even chancier than it might be otherwise.

Owls were awkward on the ground.

"I should have thought," the old woman said as Ullu edged past them, seeking space to unfurl her wings again. Ullu's talons clicked on ceramic tiles.

"We will be well," Susan said. She studied the corridor. She suspected that the dark blue floor with its speckles of white and gold would look clean longer than something the same pale yellow of the walls would. Light colored floors required more frequent scrubbing.

"Opening the main door seemed unwise when my Lady only invited you three, but I should have thought. There are skylights above that the Owl may use when you leave." She sounded tired. "I will open them."

"If it's permitted," Susan said, "I'm happy to climb any stairs or ladders needed."

The old woman studied Susan for several seconds then nodded. "Normally, my apprentice would, but she's gone to her brother's wedding."

The corridor opened onto a larger space, one that Susan thought could hold two hundred before feeling overcrowded. Most of what Susan could smell seemed to be flowers, but there was an undertone that made her think that the temple had many human visitors.

Raizni could confirm that, later, if Susan decided that the question was important. The floor here had three rows of square, flat cushions near the altar. Farther back, the floor was bare, and Susan guessed that, if there were services, most worshippers stood.

"My Lady will see you at the altar." 

At the old woman's gesture, Susan knelt on a dark red, square, flat cushion in front of a thing that looked uncomfortably like the Stone Table had before it broke. Susan signaled for Raizni to take the next cushion.

When Susan looked at the altar again, a child sat upon it. The child looked human but for the ears, as long as a rabbit's but not quite the same shape, and the eyes. Susan had to wrench her gaze from the eyes because looking at them was like falling up into a night sky. Susan bowed her head and looked at the floor. "My brother will regret not being here."

"I'd not have let your brother in." The child's voice sounded everything like and nothing at all like what Susan remembered Aslan having sounded like. "He is a worthy man, but he will only ever be Aslan's. None of the rest of us can borrow him."

Susan remembered the Witch's triumphant laugh and that terrible flashing blade. Aslan had ransomed Edmund. She closed her eyes. "Are you borrowing me?"

Silence stretched for several moments longer than Susan thought it ought before the child said, "No, but I _could_. If you wished it." There was another long silence.

Susan waited. She could hear her own breathing and Raizni's. She could hear small rustlings from the old woman and from Ullu. She couldn't hear the child-- the Goddess-- in any sort of ordinary way. Finally, Susan said, "That is not a decision I know enough to make." She knew how to be Queen of Narnia, of the small land. She knew how to flirt with a susceptible diplomat and the right words to say at a funeral. She also knew how to hold something back in case what she protected needed what no one else could give.

She had seen Aslan die and rise again, and she had learned from it that great sacrifices defeat great enemies. The Witch hadn't lost because Aslan was powerful or because Aslan was lucky. The Witch had lost because Aslan knew something she didn't and used that knowledge at exactly the right moment.

Susan didn't have Aslan's power or Aslan's knowledge, but she had more than she let potential enemies see. They called her 'the gentle,' and she was-- would be-- until she absolutely needed not to be. She'd already considered the possibility this night, so she would not ask the Lady Zardeenah if this was the moment to spend her soul. 

There were so very many tasks better accomplished in other ways, and she remembered enough history to know that, when one offered that sacrifice, it would be accepted.

If Lady Zardeenah asked for everything Susan had or could ever be, Susan would give it. Susan would marry. Susan would wander into the wilderness to become a hermit. Susan would-- Susan loved so many people in this world that it wouldn't even need the binding promises she'd made when she accepted her crown. Susan would die for that. Susan would also live for that.

"That is a very long path, child," the goddess said. "Every branch has some loss. Those that look not to are the ones with hidden turnings."

"Nevertheless," Susan answered. She understood the warning. 

"This is not a task that only you can manage," the goddess said. "It is one you _could_ manage well enough to suit, but you are right in thinking that that would leave other things undone elsewhere." She sighed, and Susan thought she felt the walls of reality shiver. "Just remember, there will always be things undone elsewhere, up until all things are done forever."

"Nevertheless," Susan repeated. She felt like she was promising something harder and deeper than she ever had before. She felt Raizni stir next to her and grumble, and Susan wondered what the Leopard though of this. She wondered, too, what Ullu thought and if either of them would tell Edmund.

"Three times offered, three times refused," the goddess said as if it meant something important. "Do not marry Rabadash. There will, someday, be another thing that only you can do; this is not that. You will have our goodwill and Aslan's love always. It won't be enough for the task if sufficiency is not already in you, but you will never walk alone."

Susan's throat tightened, and her eyes stung. As blessings went, that was far from reassuring. "I will find it in me to manage." She made the words a vow. She raised her eyes to Zardeenah's face again. "I would have. If you'd said you needed me, I mean."

"I know." The goddess's voice was a gentle breeze at night, a little chilly, a little eerie, but carrying dew as a reminder of life. "That was never our question, Susan Pevensie."

Susan met the goddess's eyes because they both needed to know that Susan could look at eternity and infinity and not drown.

It was an hour short of dawn when Susan and the goddess both looked away. Susan thought that they had both simply decided that the time and the testing had been sufficient.

"Go back to your brother," the Lady Zardeenah said. "Tell him that it is not a fault in either of you. You're the spark in the lamp oil, as far as waking the spirits goes, but the lamp oil's been sitting too close to a bonfire ever since the Witch fell and Aslan's magic started seeping back into the rest of the world."

Susan nodded. She thought Edmund would understand the metaphor. She thought, also, that the crucial moment might not have been the death of the Witch but rather the cracking of the Stone Table. She wasn't sure she'd tell Edmund that. She wasn't sure if anything would be better if he understood that Aslan might have chosen the knife for more than just a single grubby and terrified child.

Susan found the idea comforting and held it close as she walked back through the city. She wasn't sure that any of her siblings would understand why, so she didn't plan to try to explain it.

Edmund was still in the garden when Susan got back to their temporary abode. He knelt on a cobbled walkway with one hand buried in the soil of the adjacent flowerbed. "I've felt more and more waking spirits," he told her as she approached. "So very many of them."

Susan didn't bother asking if he'd slept at all. Instead, she put her hand on his shoulder and said, "I think all will be well."

He looked up at her. "Very likely. I wish we understood the world better."

Susan wished that, too. "I don't think we could keep going if we knew." She was lying. She could. They all could. It was merely that seeing the future coming would hurt more. She squeezed her brother's shoulder. "I met a goddess. She said it was not because we came to Tashbaan." She picked her words carefully because she didn't wish to lie to Edmund. "She said that this is no fault in us and... not our task."

"You will come home, then?" He sounded younger and a little lost.

"After we see the Tisroc and discuss a treaty," she said. "After Corin has his adventure." She let herself laugh a little. "After you visit the university and the observatory. After we're all sick to death of cheese and turnips and beans."

He smiled at her and pushed himself to his feet. "We should both change our clothes and eat some of those beans. Even if we nap an hour or three during the worst of the heat, it will be a long day."

"We'll both sleep three hours at mid-day," Susan told him firmly, "and we'll go to bed early tonight. We have that much time." She would cherish every moment she had. 

Lady Zardeenah had spoken of a task for Susan, but until that time arrived, some parts of her life could be given to what she chose. Some day, Aslan would call, and Susan would answer. Susan would walk away from everything if she had to.

For now, she could choose Edmund and Lucy and Peter and Narnia.


End file.
